a family weekend

Hello everyone. It's just approaching seven thirty on Saturday morning. Yesterday, I spent from pretty much noon onward out in the back yard with the family and assorted company. My grandmother arrived from Winnipeg Thursday evening. There was a mix-up on when her flight was arriving but we used my computer to sort that out and get there in fairly reasonable time. The main event was definitely yesterday though. Dan and his family came over. Ava and Amia were as cute and chaotic as ever. Ava seems to be entering a bit more of an awkward phase where she changes her mind about what she wants to do more often. Amia wants to do what her big sister is doing until she actually gets the chance to. In the case of going in the swimming pool while wearing a life jacket, she wasn't all that thrilled. It was a pretty fun afternoon and a chance to get all caught up with each other's news. We also saw a couple of our neighbours and two out of a family of four who we've known for years. We ordered Chinese food for dinner which everyone seemed to enjoy.

Today, the festivities continue with a trip with my father and grandmother to a casino, her favorite activity. I'm limiting myself to twenty dollars of my own money. I'd much rather have money on hand for meeting new friends with. I'd love to think that someone interested in going beyond friendship would come along but begin to doubt that'll happen any time soon. Before things kicked off yesterday, I managed to cancel my subscription to eHarmony so I won't get charged again in September when my current one expires. I believe I'm now down to three, or possibly four matches who haven't closed off communication but from whom I haven't heard a peep. Plentyoffish has been rather placid with week also with no really interesting conversations happening in the forums. I'm going to meet up with one lady next week for a coffee and cookies. She's looking for new friends and has CP to contend with. Eating anything else is apparently more messy and tricky for her. We've had some pleasant chats over the past while. She has a bit of an easier time getting places and has found somewhere to volunteer a couple of times a week. It looks like I most likely won't meet Nadia for quite a while yet. She seems a bit more open to a more serious relationship but is in the proces of learning how to drive a car with adapted controls. Schedules and availability of transportation just aren't going in our favour. She told me about a new Passenger Assisted Program launched fairly recently in Mississauga which will apparently let someone like me make use of it. There's quite a waiting list from what the article she directed me to says but it could finally opens some doors for me around here. There would still be a matter of figuring out where I could actually go either to socialise or help out in the community but at least I'd finally be able to do things more on my own terms and not just when family or friends can give rides. I won't get my hopes up. There are doubtless limitations like range and such. However, it would be damned nice if this pans out.

Later on, another couple of long-standing family friends who I haven't seen in quite a while are coming for dinner. They're seriously into wines and travel quite a bit so the conversation can get very interesting. My parents have known them since before I was born.

At long last, I've started working on Enchantment's Twilight again. I just couldn't get anything worthwhile started when it comes to short stories so I started reading the ebooks I bought a while ago concerning game design. That lead to me starting to tweak and change the design document for Enchantment's Twilight and that eventually sparked some new ideas for the game's story. I just hope enough new things start happening in life to keep me fresh so I don't bog down again. The lonely routine here needs a more stable counterbalance of interaction with people who just don't seem to be available. Damn it! I should be either married or in my own place by now! It's damned hard working on a project which is supposed to show people how important we all are to each other when you're essentially barred from so much of community life! I find myself almost glad to think that this economic recession might actually give enough fully able people a taste of what they've unwittingly inflicted upon me to at last possibly offer me some faint hope of real change. I hate being driven to think like that but there you have it. When people are forced to stop living at warp speed and find that money truly doesn't offer the security they think it does, perhaps then, the qualities I can bring to the table will actually start to be worth a damn again.